For years Russia and Syria have been key allies – Moscow gained access to air and naval bases in the Mediterranean while Damascus received military support in its fight against militants.
Now, after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, many Syrians want to see Russian troops go, but their interim government says they are open to continued cooperation.
“The Russian crimes here were inexplicable,” said Ahmed Taha, a rebel commander in Douma, six kilometers northeast of the capital Damascus.
The city was once a thriving center in an area known as the “bread basket” of Damascus. And Ahmed Taha was once a citizen, working as a merchant when he took up arms against the Assad regime following a brutal crackdown on protests in 2011.
All residential districts in Douma are now in ruins after the heaviest fighting in Syria for almost 14 years.
Moscow entered the conflict in 2015 to support the regime as it loses territory. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later said that, at the time of the intervention, Damascus was only a few weeks away from being captured by the rebels.
The campaign in Syria showed that the ambition of Russian President Vladimir Putin must be taken seriously after widespread criticism of his annexation of Crimea.
In the siege of Eastern Ghouta, civilians and rebels have been surrounded for five years [BBC]
Moscow says it has tested 320 different weapons in Syria.
It also secured a 49-year lease on two military bases on the Mediterranean coast – the Tartus naval base and the Hmeimim air base. This allowed the Kremlin to quickly increase its influence in Africa, serving as a springboard for Russian operations in Libya, the Central African Republic, Mali and Burkina Faso.
Despite the support of Russia and Iran, Assad could not prevent his regime from collapsing. But Moscow gave him and his family refuge.
Now, many Syrian citizens and rebels see Russia as a collaborator of the Assad regime that helped destroy their country.
“The Russians came to this country and helped dictators, oppressors, and invaders,” said Abu Hisham, as he celebrated the fall of the regime in Damascus.
Russia should leave Syria, just as Iran has left, said Mouna Ali Mansour from the village of Hafir al-Tahta. [BBC]
The Kremlin has always denied that, saying it only targets jihadist groups like IS or al-Qaeda.
But the United Nations and human rights groups accused the regime and Russia of committing war crimes.
In 2016, during the massive offensive in eastern Aleppo, Syrian and Russian forces carried out relentless airstrikes, “killing hundreds of lives and turning hospitals, schools and markets into rubble,” according to a UN report.
In Aleppo, Douma and elsewhere, government forces besieged rebel-held areas, cut off food and medicine, and continued bombing until the armed opposition surrendered.
Russia has also negotiated ceasefires and surrender agreements for rebel-held towns and cities, such as Douma in 2018.
All over Syria, including here in Douma, entire neighborhoods have been left in ruins after years of regime and Russian airstrikes. [BBC]
Ahmed Taha was among the rebels who agreed to surrender in order to safely leave the city following a five-year siege by the Syrian army.
He returned to Douma in December as part of a rebel group led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We returned home in spite of Russia, in spite of the regime and all those who supported it,” said Taha.
He has no doubt that the Russians must leave: “For us, Russia is the enemy.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by many of the people we talk to.
Even the leaders of the Christian communities in Syria, Russia vowed to protect them, say they are not getting help from Moscow.
In the book of Bab Touma, the ancient Christian quarter of Damascus, the Bishop of the Syrian Orthodox Church says: “We had no experience of Russia or anyone else from foreign countries protecting us.
“The Russians are here to achieve their own goals,” Ignatius Aphrem II told the BBC.
Some Syrian Christians were less vocal.
“When they first arrived, they said: ‘We came here to help you,'” said a man named Assad. “But instead of helping us, they are destroying Syria even more.”
The future of Russian bases in Syria is now a topic of discussion [AFP]
Sharaa, who is now the leader of Syria, said in a BBC interview last month that he would not rule out the Russians staying, and described the relationship between the two countries as “strategic”.
Moscow took his words to heart, with foreign minister Lavrov admitting that Russia was “very similar to our friends in Syria”.
But untangling the bonds in a post-Assad future may not be easy.
Rebuilding the Syrian military will require a completely new start or continuing to rely on Russian assets, which would mean at least some kind of relationship between the two countries, said Turki al-Hassan, a defense analyst and retired Syrian army general.
Syria’s military cooperation with Moscow predates the Assad regime, Hassan said. Almost all the equipment it has was produced in the Soviet Union or Russia, he explains.
“Since its inception, the Syrian army has been armed with Eastern Bloc weapons.”
Between 1956 and 1991 Syria received some 5,000 tanks, 1,200 fighter jets, 70 ships and many other systems and weapons from Moscow worth more than $26bn (£21bn), according to Russian estimates.
Much of this was to support the wars between Syria and Israel, which has largely defined the country’s foreign policy since independence from France in 1946.
More than half of that debt remained unpaid when the Soviet Union collapsed, but in 2005 President Putin canceled 73% of the debt.
Meanwhile, Russian officials have taken a conciliatory but cautious approach to the interim rulers who have overthrown the long-standing alliance with Russia.
Vassily Nebenzia, the UN representative in Moscow, said that the recent events marked a new chapter in the history of what he called “the Syrian people who are brothers”. He said Russia would provide humanitarian aid and reconstruction support to allow Syrian refugees to return home.